Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I do not want to delay this any longer, but I thought that was a fairly churlish contribution. This is an $822 million package for carers. The Howard government had 12 years to achieve these reforms, but it did not. To suggest that the budgetary situation is stymieing reform in this area is, I think, directly countered by the fact that, despite a difficult budget and the economic situation, this government committed $822 million to try to improve the lot of carers. I do not want to get into a partisan argument about the previous 12 years of policy and/or commitment in this area, but this is a very significant package in terms of both policy and finance.

Senator Siewert knows, as I do, having gone through the child support arrangement reforms—I do not mean to harp on about this—that this is a classic case where there was a really complex set of public policy issues and entitlements from shared care that the previous government did a very good job on in commissioning the report on the child support reforms. It then went through a very serious process with community debate and then went through this parliament. It went through, sponsored by the previous government, with the Labor Party’s support as a good piece of public policy for a really difficult issue. I am not at all hiding behind the complexity, but it would be foolish not to recognise just how complex this is. We are saying that we are not in a position to move to try to resolve this as part of this legislation. I think that if you were to get reform in this area you would probably have to go through the same sort of process we went through with the child support reforms.